Ok, so I'm having issues with one of my tires wearing extremely quickly, and it's also get waves in it. Before you say anything about rotating and balancing or an alignment, I had all three done a little over 2 oil changes ago (so about 10-11k miles ago) and just had the tires rotated and balanced again less than a month ago. The last time I had the tires rotated and balanced was because of the way the tires were wearing, and also because they are extremely loud to be just an over-rated all terrain. Here's some pictures of the tire that's wearing really bad...it's the front passenger side tire: (oh and i have the dip circled)
If you'll also notice, the tread gets deeper and deeper as you near the inside of the tire. Here's a picture of one of the other tires. It's pretty much a good representation of what the tread looks like on all the other tires:


So anyways...does anyone know what the problem could be? Does it sound like my ball joints may be gone on the passenger side? Also, when I took it for my last alignment, the guys spent all day on it and said it was aligned but said they couldn't get the steering wheel straight. So when I drive straight, my steering wheel is a little bit to the right, but not much. But I thought I had read that you can straighten the steering wheel up on these trucks no matter what? It also seems to have a lot of play in it and I have to do a lot of excess turning to make some pretty simple turns. Any suggestions anyone? If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

 

Take it to another alignment shop. Those idiots not only screwed your alignment up, they also now screwed up your tires. You are correct when you thought something was wrong when they could not get your steering wheel straight.

The cupping may be due to a bad alignment, but also may be due to bad shocks.

If you need your ball joints replaced, a reliable alignment shop will tell you. Then get new tires.

 

Thanks man. I'm not too auto savy but I'm trying to get there, and what little I do know, I figured it could be fixed better than what they said. How exactly do you get the steering wheel straight on these trucks? I've read it's not too difficult but nobody really goes into detail on how to do it. But yeah, I'm planning on doing the Rough Country leveling kit which comes with new shocks, and I'm also going to get new, bigger tires so hopefully I can get it aligned by a DIFFERENT shop once I get all that done and we'll see how much better it does. I had another shop, the one that I usually go to and just recently had the tires balanced by, that told me they would check my ball joints for free, I'd just have to set up a time with them, so I think I'm going to do that this week. He told me that a ball joint job can be pretty pricey, so I think I may buy the parts and get a friend of mine to help me. He's done it several times on his trucks and says it's not complicated at all, just a lot of taking stuff apart. So we'll see how that goes. I think I'll try and get all my stuff together and, if the ball joints do need replacing, have the ball joints, leveling kit, and tires put on all in the same day, that way I can just go for one alignment.

 

The alignment shop will straighten your steering wheel as part of the alignment process.

If you have friends who also own 4 wheel drive pickups (especially Super Dutys) ask them for a recommendation on an alignment shop. If not, try your local 4x4 shop or even truck shop.

Also, while more expensive, the dealerships do know how to work on these trucks.

Cost for a complete front end overhaul, replacing all wear parts.....depends on shop rate, but probably should not exceed $1200.

 

It looks like the toe or camber is off, but I'm not sure. Your tires might be feathering due to worn shocks. If you have 50k miles or more, I'd replace them if you haven't already. The weight of the diesel is harder on parts, and since you have a 2003 you might be ready for ball joints.

 

Go somewhere else, get the alignment fixed, check the ball joints, get new shocks if those are old, and then worry about the tires.